


Operation Aprankalypse

by ShayLaLaLooHoo



Category: Hollywood U: Rising Star, Pixelberry Games
Genre: April Fool's Day Quest, F/M, Mild Peril, Pranking the Professor, Quotes from quest, References to a Hunt Date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 02:33:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4083349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShayLaLaLooHoo/pseuds/ShayLaLaLooHoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethan's prank was simple, (no, actually, it was kinda complicated.) Bianca, Lisa, Ethan and I were all supposed to lock ourselves with Professor Hunt into his favorite screening room so we could fake a highly realistic earthquake. Easy-peazy.<br/>In hindsight, I should've worn an outfit with more secure pockets.<br/>Also, credit to <a href="https://danielnelsen.tumblr.com/"> Ashton Nelsen's</a> excellent <a href="http://hollywooduguide.weebly.com/april-fools-pranking-the-professor.html">Hollywood U Quest Guides</a> for providing me with the dialogue. I'm an idiot for not crediting this earlier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scheming

I watched Hunt pack up his things, upset by the fact that he still looked so put together after calling Lisa out like that during class. I could almost feel her anger radiating from her seat next to me as she growled slightly.

“He thinks he’s so cool!” She hissed, jutting her head forward. “I really just want to take him down a peg, just once!”

“What if I told you _that you can_?” Ethan piped up from behind us. I jumped slightly. “Or at least you can try…”

I tore my sights from Professor Hunt to Ethan. He was leaning forward, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Ethan, what do you mean?” I whispered.

“Let’s just say there’s a tradition here a Hollywood U,” he said, grinning. “Once a year, Hunt’s class goes all-out to prank him. The ‘mole rat in the briefcase came the closest…” (He paused, smirking at my disgusted face,) “But so far, nobody’s succeeded in flustering him at all.”

“Yeah, but none of those other classes had Lisa Valentine!” the pink-haired girl exclaimed, her bold, familiar smile on her face. I half expected her to jump up on the desk and start singing. “Don’t you want to give Mister Perfect a scare and show him he’s not as amazeballs as he thinks he is?”

I rested a finger near the corner of my lips, pretending to entertain the thought; all I was doing was making Ethan and Lisa squirm in their seats in excitement, which was what was really entertaining. There was no way I wouldn’t be doing this.

“Oh. Em. _Gee._ ”

I turned, groaning, to see the self-sure stance of Bianca Stone. She always looked like she was going to rip out my earrings. “Are you guys seriously talking about pranking Professor Hunt?!”

I glanced back up at the front of the auditorium, wondering if Hunt could hear us. He was arguing with a group of students who were trying to prove him wrong about the filming methods used by Alfred Hitchcock.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” I said, shooting her a narrow glare. “But the real question is, do you know what happens to _rats_?”

She scoffed nasally. “Please. Like I would ever stoop to something as low as _snitching._ ”

I dropped the threat from my glare, switching it for incredulity. “You literally snitch on me all the time.”

“Well… this time’s different.” Bianca said, pausing for what I was hoping was dramatic affect. “This time… I want in.”

“Wait… you do?” Lisa said.

“Um, duh?” Bianca replied. “Professor Hunt is the only one who annoys me even more than you people.”

“Heh,” Ethan chuckled, leaning back slightly. “The enemy of my enemy…”

“What is that? Like, a stupid haiku?” Bianca sneered

“Never mind,” Ethan said. I wondered if he regretted not turning away Bianca when we had the chance. “So what about you, Selene? You up for a challenge?”

I smiled innocently, pretending to ponder this. As amusing as it was to watch Lisa getting psyched up over my answer, I couldn’t keep it in much longer.

“Well, Professor Hunt does talk a big game when it comes to coping with pressure. It’d be fun to see if he can back it up…”

“So you’re in?” Lisa said, bouncing on the spot. “Please tell me you’re in!”

Lisa and Ethan waited, barely breathing, while Bianca tried to feign indifference. Even she couldn’t hide that she knew this prank would need me to be successful. I looked to Professor Hunt, who was smugly packing away his things as those who’d tried to debate with him trudged away. I bit the corner of my lip, smiling wickedly.

“You know what…yeah! I’m in!”

“Yes!” Ethan cheered as quietly as he could. “This is happening!”

Lisa was so excited she could barely speak. “We’re so gonna prank Professor Hunt!”

I glanced around our ragtag group. Ethan Blake, charismatic agent with countless connections. Lisa Valentine, reckless popstar and drunk on freedom. Bianca Stone, who was definitely _something_. Selene Stark, fresh talent and one of the only people who had ever caught Professor Hunt even slightly off-guard.

“Will you be leaving any time soon?” Hunt grumbled, lingering by the door.

“Yes sir,” Lisa said, twisting her lips to match his sour expression. He glowered back as the rest of us hurriedly packed away our things. We filed out one by one, and it took more self-control than it should have for me to pass by him without breathing suspiciously.

While Thomas had managed to pass the throng of students with ease, the four of us were only just able to follow close enough behind him to track his every move.

Hunt paused for a moment near the door before opening it.

“After you, Lance.” He nodded to Bianca’s boyfriend.

“After me?!” The model replied, nearly swooning on the spot. “Professor…I’m straight-up honored!”

“Geez, I swear you’re the only person who isn’t in love with him,” Lisa leaned over to whisper.

I swallowed, trying to forget that a black domino mask was on a shelf near my bed. “Yeah. Sure.”

Lance took a step outside, and a waterfall of crimson slime dropped on him. He squealed.

“What the—!” I tightened the grip on my bag, watching as Professor Hunt settled onto one knee, eyeing the doorstep warily. I wondered whether or not it would be helpful to offer Lance a tissue.

“Ah, yes, of course, a nearly invisible trip wire…” Hunt followed the path the line made to just above the door frame, “linked to a string-tarp industrial fluids tank.”

My jaw dropped as I watched five other students jump out of their hiding places and take off running. I recognized two of them as new members of the stunt program, and one as Electro, “Supernova”. Hunt gracefully stepped over the trip wire and shouted after them.

“You think you can _Carrie_ me? Really?!” He scoffed, throwing his arms out to the side. “I expected a little more ingenuity from my Thesis Lab!”

“Whoa, did you see that?!” Lisa said, slack-jawed and pointing to where Thomas Hunt stood, unscathed.

Bianca’s sights seemed set on Lance, dripping with red sludge and looked much betrayed. “I saw my boyfriend get totally humiliated. Ew.”

Ethan shot me a look of _can we ditch her? Please?_ Before turning to Bianca. “That, and Professor Hunt saw that prank coming from a mile away! How are we supposed to surprise him?”

I crossed my arms, raising a hand to my cheek. “We’re going to have to go big.”

 

“Ew. Just one bathroom?” Bianca said, grimacing. “Do you really sleep here, or am I on some reality show about squalor in America?”

I wrinkled my nose, about to make some comeback which would probably end up sounding stupid, when Lisa piped up.

“Quiet! Lisa’s talking! We need to decide how we’re pranking Hunt.” She stood, nearly missing hitting Bianca with her ponytail.

“I know,” Bianca smiled. “Why don’t we steal all of his underwear?!”

“Dumb,” Lisa said. (I, for one, would have used the term _‘Creepy and somewhat extreme.’_ )

“I’ve got a better idea. It’s simple,” Lisa continued. “We frame him for murder. Now that’d make him really sweat!”

I blinked, realizing that some things were more _‘creepy and somewhat extreme’_ than others. “This got darker faster than I expected…” I admitted, curling up into a ball while trying not to crush the mask I’d hidden under my pillow.

There was a knock on the door—the rhythm from the _Clash at Sunset_ soundtrack we’d decided on—that made me jump up from my bed and get the door. Ethan strode in, blueprints tucked underarm.

“What’s all that crap?” Bianca rolled her eyes and plopped onto my bed, and I tried not to flinch for my poor mask.

“Some would call it a prank. Others, a masterpiece!” Ethan grinned, gesturing to Lisa to stop sitting on my desk so he could spread the papers out. I rested my palms on the desk by him to lean over the diagrams. He was breathless with excitement. “I’ve been planning this since the day I got here.”

“Hang on…” I said, pointing to one of the charts. “You want to stage a fake earthquake using special effects, trapping us _underground?_ ”

“Hunt’s classes have been testing him for years. He’s seen everything!” Ethan said, trying to placate my worry as Lisa bounded over. “Going big-budget is the only way he won’t see it coming.”

“I love it!” Lisa gushed, rubbing her hands together. “Hunt thinks he’s so high and mighty in his little kingdom, but everyone loses it during a natural disaster!”

As she went off into a corner to do a victory dance, Bianca rolled her eyes and stood.

“That’s great and everything, but how exactly do you plan on convincing Hunt there was an actual earthquake?” She stood in the middle of the room, cocking her hip.

I turned away from the desk, glancing around. Bedsheets, used by a fashionista to cover up an Atalanta themed dress with five minutes of sewing. A loose floorboard, perfect for hiding notes and journals. A simple pillow, hiding the evidence of my deepest, darkest secret. Limited resources and a little imagination, stretching a long way.

“This is Hollywood U!” I said, drumming my fingers on the blueprints. “We’ve got all the movie magic we could dream of right at our fingertips.”

“I like your attitude, Selene.” Ethan grinned, pulling out his cell phone. “Let’s make some calls.”

I took my seat back on my bed, leaning on the pillow so Lisa couldn’t snatch it away in her excitement and reveal a scandal.

 


	2. Natural Disaster

Professor Hunt was uncharacteristically enthusiastic as he led four of his least favorite students towards one of the film libraries.

“I must confess, I was surprised when you asked me for a special screening of _The Trains Bear Their Burden In Silence._ ”

Lisa nudged me, and I nearly fell over.

“How could we not want to see, um, ‘the jewel of pre-Tarkovsky Soviet sci-fi agitprop’?” I asked, pulling my sleeve back down as his back was still turned.

He led us through the library, and I hung back slightly, letting Bianca and Lisa form a sort of screen between Professor Hunt and me.

Bianca sniggered. “It’s working! He totally bought that we wanted to see this stupid movie.”

“Selene, are you ready to lock the door to the screening room as soon as we’re inside? You have the key I duped?” Ethan whispered to me.

I reached into my back pocket and showed him the silver key in my hand, small enough to wear as a necklace pendant. “Check,” I verified, lowering it back to my side.

“And what about the effects?” Lisa murmured, then looked to Ethan. “Is everything ready for ‘EarthPrank’? Or did we decide on ‘PrankQuake’?”

Tuning her out, I reached up to press a button on my earpiece. “Crash, come in. The package is inbound. Is the device in place?”

I raised a brow to Ethan, still wondering why he wanted to use such mysterious-sounding lingo. It would be just as suspicious to Hunt if I was mumbling nonsense into my ear rather than using clear terms.

“All the effects are locked and loaded.” Crash’s voice came in clearly. “Operation Aprankalypse is a go.”

“Oh right, that’s the name we settled on,” Lisa grumbled.

Bianca reached up to her own earpiece. “This thing is safe, right?” She said worriedly, and I couldn’t help but remember jumping off of a waterfall as I held her hand.

“I don’t know the meaning of the word,” Crash joked. Bianca’s eyes darted up worriedly and I hissed into my earpiece sharply.

“Okay, fine, yeah, we borrowed the device from the set of San Andreas. It’s ‘perfectly calibrated for optimum resonance’ and everything.” Crash moped.

Thomas cleared his throat exaggeratedly, and our startled team looked up to him holding the elevator door open for us.

“Are we doing this or not?” He deadpanned.

“Oh yeah,” I said, biting the corner of my lip. “We’re definitely doing this.”

We filed into the elevator, and I was left to occupy the middle of the elevator, right by Hunt. As the elevator jerked down, I tried not to crash into him.

I went to put the key back into my pocket when I caught Thomas staring.

I grinned. “There’s nothing quite like Russian communist propaganda from World War Two, right?”

He narrowed his eyes and returned his gaze forward. I slipped the key into my pocket.

“Russia wasn’t involved in the war at the time this was made.”

I scowled. “…Right. Nothing like it.”

 

The screening room was about as large as the auditorium Hunt’s classes were usually held in, the only differences in size being that the ceiling was higher and dotted with skylights, making the room look longer and wider by comparison. There was something quaint about how the chairs and desks were lined up freely, and not drilled into the immaculately clean floor. A large silver screen was unfurled, taking almost the entire length of one wall, flanked on either side by towering shelves of old films reels.

It was almost tragic that we wouldn’t be watching a movie in here.

Thomas was the first one in, sighing with contentment. Bianca and Ethan followed close behind, the former glancing around worriedly as the latter stared at the impressive room. Lisa gave me a quick high-five before running up to the rest of the group.

Compared to other places in Hollywood, this place could be considered simple, despite the considerable size and hi-tech design. The old projector gave me a sense of nostalgia for something I’d never experienced. I was comforted, oddly enough.

“Screening Room H-Six. My favorite spot on campus,” Professor Hunt said, slowing his stride. “No one ever comes here.”

“It’s like your Batcave,” Ethan stated.

Lisa jumped, pumping a fist. “It’s the Huntcave!”

“And I already regret bringing you here.” Hunt grumbled. “Let’s just get started, okay?”

He went to the shelf against the far wall and chose the first film reel almost instantly. I stayed pressed against the only door to the room, locking it behind my back. I gave a brief nod to Ethan, who was watching me intently, and whispered into my earpiece radio.

“Package secured. Green light.”

Crash and his team whooped and cheered as he shouted orders energetically.

“ _Time to shake and bake!”_ He yelled, pulling a switch so large I could hear it click in place. _“But mostly shake!”_

I released the button on my earpiece, looking at Lisa and Ethan nervously. Bianca looked slightly sick.

“Does…” Professor Hunt stopped tinkering with the projector. “Does anyone else feel that?”

Our team shared one last look, rejoining into a tight group near a wall. The shaking beneath our feet grew.

“Earthquake!” Bianca shrieked dramatically.

We struggled to keep our balance—Lisa’s first reaction was to grab a nearby desk while I went on my knees, covering the back of my neck.

Lisa was shouting something to Ethan that I couldn’t quite make out, due to Bianca’s screaming. All I heard was Hunt shouting as he held onto a wall.

“Calm down, it’s not even a four pointer!” He yelled as Lisa snuck up to me. “Didn’t you grow up in California?”

“Come on Selene, you’re an actress!” She said. “You really gotta sell this earthquake!”

I nodded quickly, grabbing onto Lisa’s outstretched hand. A powerful jump propelled me to my feet as I staggered to Thomas.

The room shook violently right when I needed it to and I stumbled into Hunt’s arms with a gasp. He caught me, still keeping perfect balance during the quake.

I sighed in relief. “You caught me.”

He pursed his lips. “Your grace and poise continue to astound me, Selene.”

“Right back at ya!” I said, standing on my trembling legs. “Only not sarcastic.”

The quake stopped gradually over a minute, but I kept my eyes shut. I signaled for everyone to begin the next phase behind my back, where Thomas couldn’t see.

“It’s stuck! We’re trapped down here!” Ethan called out in horror before pressing his face right against the glass of the door. “ _Help! Help, somebody!”_

“I’m not getting any cell service!” I cried out, tapping on the screen of my phone. “We can’t call for rescue!”

“We’re doomed!” Lisa said, collapsing to her knees; had anyone else done that, it couldn’t be taken seriously. “We’re all gonna die down here!”

Bianca whined over the noises of Ethan’s calls for help and Lisa’s crying.

“All of you, shut up!” Hunt roared suddenly. “You’re all fine. No one’s injured. The gravest danger right now is your annoying voices giving me an aneurysm. Help will be here any minute, so just relax, will you?”

My head darted up from my phone, realizing that he barely reacted. “But—!”

“ _Selene_ , stay off your phone,” He said firmly, stalking towards the others. “Ethan, stop pulling on the door. Conserve your strength. And Bianca, get out from under those skylights! An aftershock could shatter them.”

Lisa was really panicked now, seeing that our prank wasn’t working. “How are you not freaking out?! We’re trapped underground by an earthquake! This is super scary!”

“Yeah, we’re in the middle of a major disaster!” Ethan said, gingerly helping Bianca up from the floor, looking like he’d wished he’d brought hand sanitizer.

“I was a production assistant on Battlefield Earth. Trust me, I’ve survived disasters,” Professor Hunt said, turning around and adjusting his jacket. “Now then, I had a late night grading your papers and re-evaluating my life choices, so if you four don’t mind shutting up for once, I’m going to take this opportunity to get some rest.”

He brushed past me, taking off his jacket before curling up in a corner, holding it to his chest. The rest of us regrouped.

“I can’t believe that didn’t work,” I whispered, awestruck.

Ethan spoke next. “Hunt didn’t even flinch. The man’s unflappable. We didn’t even match the exploding soda prank of 2013!”

Lisa grabbed his arm. “What? You guys can’t just give up! We’re so close!”

“Close?” Bianca scoffed. “Hunt is literally napping through your stupid prank right now! We should’ve done my idea…”

“I’m not giving up,” Lisa insisted. “He’s not better than us. He’s human after all. We just need to turn up the pressure.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s just like an earthquake,” she explained “Pressure builds beneath the surface… until something finally snaps. Hunt’s only so calm because he thinks help is coming… but what if we make him think it’s not?”

“And how do you suppose we do that?” Bianca crossed her arms.

I raised a finger to the corner of my mouth, tapping, thinking deeply. “Just a little more movie magic…”

 


	3. Aftershock

One successful radio call and a half-hour later, I had a video pulled up on my phone and we’d all watched it three times through to see any errors.

“Professor Hunt!” I called, in a voice that sounded as though I couldn’t quite control my panic. “You’ll want to see this!”

He rolled over, opening his eyes. He grumbled and ran a hand through his normally well-groomed hair that was mussed with sleep. “Hrm. I was having the best dream ever…that I wasn’t here. What do you want?”

I scurried over, stumbling over my feet to show him the video. I was acting every inch like a traumatized natural disaster survivor.

A breaking news graphic flashed on the screen. A redheaded news anchor stood, quaking as tears streamed down her dirtied face.

I wouldn’t have recognized them if I hadn’t gotten Crash to call them specifically: Ivy, acting major; Charles, director and editor; and Fitz, one of the most talented makeup artists on campus. His skills nearly rivaled Shae’s. Altogether, they made this look like a real report.

“ _Coming to you from Sunset Boulevard, you’re seeing live images of the destruction from the tremendous quake that struck just moments ago!”_ Ivy said, her body superimposed over a digital background of a rubble-and-smoke filled street, lining with broken palm trees.

“It looks like it was way worse than we thought, doesn’t it, Professor?” Ethan piped up quietly. Thomas remained silent.

“ _Is it the end of the world? Who knows? The one thing we do know is that emergency services are overwhelmed! If you’re in need of help, perhaps trapped underground in some capacity, do not expect rescue for four days!”_

Bianca gasped. “Oh no!”

“I guess help isn’t coming!” Lisa wailed like a foghorn, shaking her head so hard her ponytail whipped the sides of her face. “How will we survive? We’re going to starve to death, aren’t we, Professor?”

Hunt stood, walking to a cabinet at the very back of the room where we hadn’t ventured.

“Um, Professor?” She quavered. I groaned silently.

He returned, holding protein bars and bags of dried fruits in his arms.

“Where did you get all that?” I murmured, equally awestruck and disgusted by his preparedness.

“I told you, this is my refuge. I come here often, so forgive me for enjoying a snack now and then,” he replied dryly. “A quick calculation based on calorie content, and I’d say there’s enough here to ration among us over four days.”

“Are you sure? That doesn’t seem like a lot.” Lisa asked, grasping at straws. “I still think we’re going to die.”

He stared at her incredulously. “I once stretched a 1.2 million dollar budget across 72 shooting days and a six-month post-production cycle. This is _nothing._ ”

He went off to a distant desk to divide the food as the rest of us stayed huddled on the floor.

“Call it,” I said dejectedly, looking up to the clouds through the skylight. “Operation Aprankalypse is finished. Time of death: two—!”

“It’s not finished!” Lisa insisted, punching the floor. “We’re getting under his skin, I just know it!”

“But what can we do? He had a secret snack stash here!” Ethan sighed, resting a hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “We’re in over our heads with this guy, Lisa!”

“There’s still one thing we can try!” Lisa said, grabbing Ethan’s hand in a vice-like grip. She saw me cock my head slightly. “Hunt was worried about aftershocks, remember? We just hit him with another earthquake. This time… even stronger!”

I hesitated. The last one had been surprisingly strong, and I grew up near Salt Lake City, where I slept through four point fives without even feeling them. Then again, this was our last chance. We’d invested a lot in this, and couldn’t quit now.

I touched my earpiece softly, simultaneously hoping it would and wouldn’t connect.

“Crash? Could we run another earthquake?” I paused, whispering the last part quieter than I thought I could. “Stronger this time?”

“Totally!” Crash replied, sounding much perkier than I felt. “Wait…okay, that was premature. I’m being told that the earthquake generator isn’t meant to exceed certain—!”

“Just do it!” Lisa hissed into my earpiece.

There was a moment before Crash disconnected. I swallowed, hard, and a sense of uneasiness came over me.

Suddenly, the room started shaking again. My teeth chattered, and the food supply Hunt had set up fell off the table. I shrieked, falling backwards from my sitting position.

“Okay, maybe this wasn’t the best idea!” Lisa said, teeth chattering.

“It’s an aftershock!” Professor Hunt barked. “Get out from under the skylights!”

Ethan and Lisa were able to stand just as I heard the glass shattering. I pushed Bianca away and shoved away to the shelf, about a yard from Hunt, watching the shards bounce on the floor.

I sighed in relief, leaning against the wall by the shelf, trying to quiet my pulse.

“Selene, look out!” Hunt yelled by me.

I darted around; the shelf was about to make impact with my head before I was tackled away by Hunt.

His breath came out a hiss as we made impact with the floor, rolling away from the shelf just as it hit the floor. I swore I could see stars until my vision cleared, and I realized that that was just glass shards on the carpet, and I was halfway on top of him and our legs were a tangled mess. I pushed myself up slightly.

“Selene!” Ethan called over the noise. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” I managed, then I realized that my hand was on his chest, and my hand wasn’t being moved which meant his chest was perfectly still and _oh no_ he wasn’t breathing at all.

“ _But Professor Hunt’s not moving!_ Professor!” I shrieked with a strained and frantic voice, and it came out a shrill slur of words. _“…Professor Hunt!”_

I knelt, touching my earpiece, all trembling arms and knees. “ _Crash!_ Stop the machine! _Now!_ ”

 


	4. Onwards & Upwards

There was something surreal about how the film reels were scattered across the floor, and if someone had been looking down from where the broken skylight was, they’d see something that would look like any dramatic death scene in a movie—a small group gathering around a trembling heroine as she held the unmoving form of her hero. However, real life was not that romantic.

“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap…” Lisa repeated like some kind of mantra.

“We killed our professor!” Bianca shrieked, shaking Ethan by the collar of his suit. “I had nothing to do with this! This is all you people!”

My hand suddenly shifted on his chest, and I noted with relief that he had begun breathing raggedly.

“He’s breathing still!” I shouted to Bianca. “But the shelf must have hit him as he saved me.”

“Try to wake him, Selene!” Ethan urged, prying Bianca’s fingers from his Armani suit.

I had zero medical experience, but I hoped that movies were good enough for this situation.

“Sorry, Professor, but we both know this has been a long time coming,” I sighed, raising my hand and striking him across his face.

The slap was loud enough that Ethan and I both winced, even though Thomas Hunt still was in my lap, unmoving.

Ethan whistled. “Yikes. If that didn’t wake him, nothing will. He’s out cold”

“We are so screwed,” Lisa whispered.

Immediately, Ethan began pacing the entire length of the room, loosening his tie in agitation. “Okay, okay, okay… think, Ethan, think… we can figure this out… no big deal…”

“Not a big deal?! You knocked out our professor!” Bianca said, gesturing to the unconscious body.

“It’ll be okay, we just need to get him medical attention,” I said hysterically.

“Right! Yeah!” Lisa face-palmed. “Okay, Selene, go unlock the door!”

I set Professor Hunt down on the floor, away from the skylight, and put my hand on my back pocket.

Then I checked my front pocket, followed by turning all pockets on my outfit inside out.

“The key!” I cried. “It’s gone!”

“Gone?!” Lisa squeaked. “No no no, it can’t be!”

“It must have fallen out during the quake! Help me look!” I said, dropping to my hands and knees to search in the broken glass. Lisa checked the shelves while Ethan went around the perimeter of the room, checking around the desks. Bianca, however, thought it best to tug at the door.

“We actually trapped!” she squealed.

“And that’s not even our biggest problem.” Ethan jumped to his feet, coughing as he threw aside an air vent cover.

Smoke was sprouting from the air vents, unstopped by the vent covers.

“What is that?!” Lisa squealed.

“Crash, come in!” I said, thumb pressed against my earpiece. “We’ve got smoke coming in through the floor! What’s happening?!”

“Um…” Crash’s voice shook over the radio. “The tech guys are talking pretty fast… but it sounds like pushing the earthquake machine past its limits might’ve… overheated it. You’re gonna want to get out of there ASAP!”

“Crash, we can’t get out, we need help!” I shouted, trying to keep my cool. “Get over here before we all suffocate!

“We’re coming! Hold your breath! But not really, because it’s gonna take us some time to get there! We’re all the way on the other side of campus!” Crash said in a tight voice.

“Hurry!” I said, hearing him yell at everyone to leave the lab before the radio shut off.

“There’s no way they’ll make it in time! The smoke’s coming in too fast, and there’s no other way out!”

“Way to be positive, Ethan!” Lisa said, who had joined in with Bianca at tugging at the door. “Maybe try being constructive and think of something!”

“Well, Little Miss Mermaid, maybe if you had just realized you’d failed and gone home, we wouldn’t be here!” Bianca shrieked back.

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Bianca right now, but yeah!” Ethan shouted. “You wanted to build up the pressure, but the only thing that snapped was you!”

The three began a shouting match, and I tried to block them out. I could barely see through the smoke, but I knew there were no windows on the wall, since this was a screening room. The only part that wasn’t was the ceiling, but the only window open was the broken one. I glanced around the desks and chairs. Limited resources, a little imagination.

“Guys, I have an idea!” I shouted, turning around the face them.

The only person who could have heard was Professor Hunt, since the others were all screaming over me.” I ran over to them and pulled Lisa away from the door.

“Hey! _Shut up_!” I yelled, standing between them. They all silenced.

“We are not dying in here!” I said. “There’s still one way out!”

“Where?! Tell me!”

I pointed up to the ceiling, where the edges of the broken skylight glinted in the sunlight.

“There.”

 


	5. Rescue

“What?! The skylight?” Lisa shrieked. “Oh, great, sure, let me just grow some wings, and we’ll get out no problem!”

“Lisa’s right, Selene. That doesn’t help us if we can’t reach it!” Ethan admitted.

“But we can. By working together!” I insisted. “Look at all these shelves! The desks! We can stack them together and build something tall enough to climb out!"

Bianca tried to cut in. “But what if—!”

“There’s no time! Let’s get to work!” I shouted. “Bianca, you clear off whatever’s left on the shelves. Ethan, help me set up a wide base. Lisa, you’ll climb up, and we’ll pass shelves to you to start stacking! Move it! There’s not much time!”

Ethan and I pushed the desks together, stacking them on top of one another until we’d grabbed all we could see. Lisa barely kept her balance as she climbed up, and we could only see her silhouette through the thickening smoke.

“This one’s ready!” Bianca said, throwing the film reels haphazardly to the side.

“Got it!” Ethan said, grunting as he dragged it over. “Here’s another one for you, Lisa!”

He passed it to me, and Lisa and I lifted it up to her level as she counted.

“Bianca, move Professor Hunt away from the vent!” I shouted, suddenly noticing the he was right by one of the largest vents.

She struggled to drag him away in her heels, but heels were better than glass-embedded feet, I reasoned.

“We’re almost there!” Ethan shouted through the smoke.

The last shelf went up, and I worried that it wasn’t enough until Lisa cheered triumphantly.

“We’re at the top! I can climb out! Come on!”

Ethan followed shortly after, despite his persistence. He only went up after I pointed out the Bianca was in a skirt. Bianca went up next, struggling to climb the shelves.

“A little help would be nice, you know!” She whimpered, refusing to look down. I pushed her up with one hand.

When she shoved off, the shelves began swaying. I barely had time to jump up before the tower collapsed.

Ethan and Lisa grabbed me by the wrists, and I registered a sharp stinging on my left hand.

“Gotcha!” Ethan shouted, and they began pulling me up. I was blinded by the bright sunlight once I emerged from the smoke, and I was barely on my feet when Ethan wrapped me in a tight hug.

Lisa cackled, dancing on the roof. “We’re alive!”

Ethan pulled away, raising his arms in triumph as he strutted around the roof. “Oh that sweet, fresh air! I missed you baby!”

“We can’t just stand around! Hunt is still down there!” I shouted, cradling the hand that had been cut on the broken skylight. “We have to find a key to unlock the door, or call the fire department or something!”

We all turned to climb down from the roof when someone started slowly clapping behind us.

“Nicely done.”

We turned around.

“Professor!” I gasped, trying not to sob with relief or run and hug him.

“How are… what did… how’d you get out?!” Lisa gaped.

“You were just down there in the smoke, out cold!” Ethan said, gesticulating wildly.

“Through the front door, of course,” Professor Hunt said, pulling a key out of his jacket pocket. “Through the library.”

I recognized the key immediately. “You took it off me?”

He rolled his eyes. “Obviously. When I tackled you out of the way of that shelf.”

“But why? Why would you steal it? I mean, how would you even know to steal it unless…” Lisa trailed off, despair creeping into his voice.

“Unless you knew it was us who had locked the door from the beginning,” Ethan finished dejectedly.

“You knew it was all a prank?” I said.

“Of course I did,” Thomas said, smirking. “You lot think so highly of yourselves, I knew you couldn’t resist taking a shot at the king. But I told you from the beginning. This week was about learning to cope with real pressure. It’s pathetic that, out of all of you, it was Selene who was the only one to show the slightest bit of leadership.” He jutting his sharp jawline towards me, and I sheepishly put my hands in my back pocket.

“You mean you were awake for all that?’ Bianca sniveled. “You weren’t really knocked out?”

“Holy smokes…” Ethan whispered. “You pranked us.”

“Hey! That’s not cool!” Lisa shouted, taking a step toward him. “We could’ve died in there!”

Thomas scoffed. “As if I have the time for that lawsuit. As soon as I caught wind of your plan, I simply cleared out everything valuable and installed a harmless fog machine right beside your earthquake generator. It never overheated. You were never in danger. You were simply pranked.”

Ethan suddenly snickered. “Wait… if you weren’t really unconscious, then you were awake when Selene slapped you in the face.”

Hunt winced, barely resisting the urge to rub his cheek. “It’s called acting, Mr. Blake. But Selene and I will have words regarding proper first-aid protocol soon enough…”

I shrugged as he glared at me. “I did what I had to do.”

“I can’t believe it, guys… maybe… maybe he is as amazeballs as he thinks he is.” Lisa sighed. “I mean, he pranked our prank just to teach us a lesson.

“Two lessons, Miss Valentine,” Professor Hunt said smugly. “First, the value of quick problem-solving under high pressure. And second…that Thomas Hunt has never been pranked…and he never will be.”

With that, he turned to walk away. “Perhaps next time you’ll be more receptive to standard lectures. Come along now, there’s a ladder that leads down to ground level.”

Lisa groan exaggeratedly as Bianca scrambled ahead of Professor Hunt to reach the ladder. “I can’t believe we couldn’t prank him, Selene!”

“We’ll get another chance someday,” I said, patting her on the back before noticing the broken skylight below us. “Maybe sooner than we think.”

“Selene! Lisa! We’re here!” A static-shrouded voice called over my earpiece. “Where are you guys!”

Through the smoke of the skylight, I could see Crash’s red jacket, blaring like a signal. He was running around with a group of other techies, searching.

I shared a knowing look with Ethan and Lisa, and they smirked, remembering that Professor Hunt had no earpiece.

“Just when I thought things were _looking up_ …” I said, triggering my earpiece enough to catch the last two words.

Crash froze and looked up, catching our silhouettes through the fog.

“Selene, what are you doing up there!” He radioed back.

“Gosh, Professor, we had such big plans to prank you,” I sighed, “but they _fell through!_ ”

“I feel like you’re trying to tell me something,” Crash said bluntly, crossing his arms.

“Yep,” Lisa added. “He _caught us_ in the act!”

Professor Hunt turned around, scrunching his face at us judgmentally.

Crash muttered under his breath for a moment before letting out a triumphant, “Aha!” He signaled to his team, and they pulled the projector down from the wall, stretching it out as they stood on the scattered desks, making a ten foot drop from the skylight.

Hunt crossed his arms impatiently. “Stop moping around and come on! You lost! Accept defeat with a little dignity!”

I squeezed Lisa’s hand, and she carefully stepped around the skylight to stand by Ethan.

“Sorry, Professor, we’re coming…” I tripped, plunging through the skylight. I screamed, catching sight of Thomas’s terrified face before vanishing in the smoke.

“Selene!” He shouted, covering up the sound of my impact with the tarp. “ _Selene!_ Quickly, Ethan, downstairs! We have to get…”

Ethan rested a hand on Hunt’s shoulder as Crash, the tech crew, and I ran out of the screening room and through the library’s front door.

“…There’s no way Selene survived that fall,” we heard Lisa whisper as we slowly crept outside.

“No…” Professor Hunt said in a broken voice. “I… I never told Selene… how much I… why didn’t I ever say…?”

I sighed, realizing I had to stop him from saying something he might regret.

“Say what, Professor?” I said, strutting into view of the rooftop.

Professor Hunt emerged over the edge of the roof, looking rather pale and mortified.

“Selene!” He stuttered. “You’re…how?!”

“Do my eyes deceive me?” Ethan said as he approached the stunned professor. “Or did Selene just successfully prank _the_ Thomas Hunt?”

Lisa jumped up and down, then enveloped Ethan in a bear hug. “We pranked Hunt! We pranked Hunt!”

“Is this the proudest moment of my life?” Ethan shouted over the cheering of the tech crew as they followed Lisa’s lead. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“No!” Professor Hunt said, running his hands through his hair. “You did _not_ prank me. I never actually thought…”

“Come on, Professor,” I shouted. “Accept defeat with a little dignity!”

Hunt stewed in his angry silence for, obviously vanquished.

“You may have won the day, Selene… but mark my words…” He crossed his arms and glared down at me, backlit with the sunlight. “I always have the last word.”

 


	6. Recovery

Priya Singh stood by Thomas Hunt’s desk as he rifled through his wallet, muttering angrily.

“Twenty dollars,” he said grudgingly, handing it over to the other professor with a sneer.

She waited, clearing her throat. “It was only twenty if you were successfully pranked this year. It was another fifty if it was by Selene.”

“You probably wouldn’t have found out if she didn’t have such a big entourage,” He grumbled, handing over a fifty dollar bill.

“Even if her entourage wasn’t so large I’m sure I would have found out,” Priya said, happily sorting the bills into her wallet, seventy dollars richer. “How exactly did she do it? Earthquake?”

“No, I knew that part was a prank,” Thomas grumbled, turning on his computer. “She’d tricked me into thinking she had died.”

Professor Singh was quiet for a moment, statue still.

“One of the skylights had broken. I thought she’d fallen through,” he continued, clearing his throat. He kept his sights locked firmly on his screen.

“Thomas,” Priya said icily. “You know our policies.”

“Believe me, I’m very familiar with them,” he replied, tapping a finger on a binder near his desk.

She stayed silent for a moment after. “Your next class starts in ten minutes.”

With that, she walked briskly out of the room, closing the door behind her. When it clicked shut, Thomas put his face in his hands, rubbing his tired eyes.

Five minutes passed in solitude, filled only with the sounds of his keyboard clicking as typed in grades.

“Hey,” Selene said. He almost flinched at the sound of her voice. “I’m sorry for making you think I’d died.”

With that, she set a gift bag down on the corner of his desk. His eyes didn’t leave the screen of the computer as he put the present under his desk.

Selene inhaled silently, shaking her head as she rejoined her friend Addison in their desks.

The gift remained hidden from sight behind the front of his desk as he taught his Hollywood 101 class. He remained focused, trying not to let his thoughts wander to the gift bag under his desk. The only distracting thing he struggled with was ignoring Selene, who went back and forth between drumming her thin fingers on her desk, biting her lip thoughtfully, or staring up at Professor Hunt with half-lidded, sleepy eyes.

Thomas had watched Selene walk away with an excited Special FX student with shaggy red hair by her side, eagerly discussing their newest assignment before grudgingly peeking at her gift.

It was filled with protein bars and dried fruit.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This quest was so much fun! This piece turned out to much longer than anticipated, but I'm glad I've got it finished.


End file.
